Site gives pics play

Cinando uses digital media to help buyers

MADRID — Keeping the market going after everyone has gone home, website Cinando uses digital media to help busy film buyers play catch-up.

For Cannes, Cinando will stream 200-300 films. Pics offered will have largely played the Cannes market, said Jerome Paillard, Cannes Market exec director. But a few festival titles will also be available. Service will be launched at the end of the Cannes Market.

Since Dec. 6, the last day of the Ventana Sur mart, buyers streamed, for free, 264 movies that played either in theaters during the market or its vid library on B2B site Cinando, funded by site ad revs, the EU’s Media Progam and the Cannes Market.

Cinando’s real revolution is not that it’s offering an online movie service – it pacted with Arts Alliance Media for online movie delivery back in 2007 – but that the service, like Cinando itself, is getting bigger, just as the Market morphs ever more from an annual event into a year-round service.

Since April, numbers for Cinando website members have increased 39% to 33,270; companies in its database 12% to 10,460; and listed films 62% to 17,000.

Movie streaming is also soaring: In November, Cinando recorded 900 viewings from 190 buyers, vs. 490 in July from 140 buyers, and 200 in April from 75 buyers.

Several factors are at play. Cinando’s watermarked video streaming is safer, faster and more economical than Fedex-ing a disc, Paillard said.

Viewings can be traced: “Sellers know if buyers watch a film, and for how long,” he said.

“If your film’s on deadline for Media Program distribution support, say, using Cinando buyers can watch it quickly and give you feedback the same day,” said Wide Management’s Anais Clanet. Cinando is not making money yet, Paillard said, but, Cannes Market’s leadership partly depends on providing new services to the industry.

Cinando has made a land-grab in the digital space, partnering with Toronto, Pusan, the AFM, Ventana Sur, Berlin and Filmart, among others, to create online showcases for them all.

These forefront films: four of Cinando’s most-watched movies, all with 50-plus viewings, were featured in Cinando’s Karlovy Vary Screenings in Focus strand, including fest winner “The Mosquito Net.”